Transcriber: robotchangeling
Jack: So like, you know, what I'm gonna get is a nice piece of wood that sits properly amongst those things.
Ali: Okay, yeah.
Jack: So I can be nestled neatly in the corner.
Ali: Right.
Jack: But the long left arm, which is going to have, you know, like guitar pedals and microphones and everything on it, that's all there. And this little side table, that's there. And I'm just, I'm sitting at a desk! I'm sitting upright instead of either sitting on the floor [both laugh] with my screen on an Ikea Fjällbo or what I've done–
Ali: A Fjällbo.
Jack: Yeah, you know a Fjällbo. [both laugh] Or carrying a tiny glass…basically like a side table into my office every time we wanted to record Friends at the Table. But here I am.
Ali: Sure. Okay, yeah. I mean, it looks great. It looks like there's a lot of space there. I feel… [laughs]
Jack: Yes, Ali?
Ali: I feel like I'm about to tell you something unfortunate, which is… [laughs]
Jack: Yes, Ali?
Ali: I know you're excited to have a desk, but I'm not viewing… [both laugh] I understand that, structurally, it is a huge improvement from what you once had. But what you currently have is two different cabinets with the bridge of a tabletop. [laughs]
Jack: Oh?
Ali: You know, a desk can be anything. That's true.
Jack: A desk can be anything!
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: A desk is where the computer goes and you can sit ergonomically, innit?
Ali: Mm-hmm. You're remixing the desk, and you know, that’s…
Jack: Well, do you consider a desk to be like a… [both laugh quietly] Welcome to Deskteen Minutes, a 45 minute podcast where we discuss different types of desk. [Ali laughs] Yeah, what do you think a desk is, bro?
Ali: [laughs] I'm not some sort of like desk enthusiast. I'm not here to speak with any sort of authority. But it's not like you went to a place and got a piece of wood with four legs.
Jack: Like a nerd. [Ali laughs] Like a coward would. No, I didn’t.
Ali: That's fun, though. You can look right out the window.
Jack: I can look right out the window. I might be able to– I might hang like a little hummingbird feeder out there so I can look at the hummingbirds. I can look down the street.
Ali: Do things hang out in those trees? Have you spotted any, uh…
Jack: Yeah, squirrels and stuff.
Ali: Squirrels, lizards?
Jack: Eh…so, like–
Ali: Do you have lizards over there?
Jack: Not really. This is– you know, when we were both kind of like up in Irvine, or like you were around Mission Viejo type area, right?
Ali: Mm, mm-hmm.
Jack: And like, I feel like the proximity to the mountains there invited lizards way more than they do down here in the city.
Ali: Oh, sure.
Jack: I don't think I've seen a single lizard. I saw a praying mantis for the first time here, which was…
Ali: Whoa!
Jack: And it was in my garden! Which was a real blessing. [Ali laughs quietly] That was quite nice. We don't have them in the UK, so it's always a real…
Ali: Sure.
Jack: It's very exciting when I see them. I have a desk etiquette question.
Ali: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Jack: You know how mobile phones make a ticking sound on a USB mic?
Ali: Sure.
Jack: Like, they make that interference noise.
Ali: Sometimes.
Jack: Do they do that with an XLR mic? Can I bring my phone close to the…
Ali: I haven't had any…
Jack: Is it safe to have my phone on my desk?
Ali: I have not had any issues. I will sometimes leave my desk just in a different room– I mean, leave my phone in a different room, [Jack laughs quietly] just so I'm not like looking at it.
Jack: Oh, yeah.
Ali: But I've had it like sitting on my desk, sort of near my keyboard. I've had it like on the shelf that I have next to my desk over here.
Jack: Oh, nice, and it might…
Ali: And it's been no issue, so.
Jack: Good to know. You got any fish prepared, Ali?
Ali: I don't.
Jack: No, I…
Ali: I sat down, and I was like, “Wait a minute.”
Jack: I was building a desk.
Ali: [laughs] Indeed you were. Indeed you were.
Jack: So many of these fish pages have basically no information on them.
Ali: [laughs] I guess they figure, you know, there's so many of them.
Jack: Yeah, 36,000. Look at this guy. We can't show each other pictures on the stream, but this one's a little preview. I'm not going to talk about this fish, [Ali: “Uh huh”] because nobody knows shit about it, but take a look at that guy.
Ali: [laughs] Maybe we have to do the digging.
Jack: Oh, what kind of digging?
Ali: You know, to find information about this. I mean, we're providing a resource to people.
Jack: Oh, I see. Right, yes, I see. [Ali laughs] This fish is just called a dolphin fish.
Ali: Hmm.
Jack: That name has already been taken.
Ali: Oh, see, here's a medical dictionary that might have more about the bobtail snipe eel.
Jack: A medical dictionary?
Ali: Yeah. It does not really have...
Jack: Oh, disappointing? A disappointing amount?
Ali: Even less than Wikipedia, if you would believe it.
Jack: God, yeah. I got some fish in mind. I've opened up like six tabs, and I just need to go through them to see if they are… [both laugh] Snake eel. Snipe eel. Wait, this fish is– okay.
Ali: You’re really in an eel mood today, wow.
Jack: I think I'm just drawn to them in the way that anybody is drawn towards the thing that they fear, sort of inexorably. Yeah, all right. I think I got– I got one, two, three, four, five– I got six fish that we can sort of feel out as we go.
Ali: Oh, wow. Okay, yeah. I think that I have…so far I have like two. No, I have– I mean, yeah, I think we're good to go.
Jack: If you're confident about those two.
Ali: [laughs] Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Do you want to do a clap?
Ali: Sure. Let me make sure…okay, yeah. Do you want to just do a “three, two, one,” because it's just the two of us?
Jack: Yeah, sounds good.
Ali: Also, how are we gonna keep time? We still need the timer even though we’re… [laughs]
Jack: We need the fish. We need the fish aquarium. Hey, you still IP banned?
Ali: Let me see. Fish timer? Is that how I…fish race timer online stopwatch.
Jack: Oh, maybe aquarium.
Ali: Oh my God. This is something completely different. What am I looking at? [laughs]
Jack: [laughs] Yes? What?
Ali: Wait, what do you do? Okay, wait, start. Start.
Jack: What are you doing?
Ali: There’s a music element! [laughs]
Jack: Wait, link me. Link me. [both laughing] Online stopwatch. Okay, here we go. Alright, it's loading. Okay, so let's say one minute. Whoa, that's one hour. One minute. Start. Wait, set. Go! Oh my God!
Ali: [laughs] It’s so loud!
Jack: This is someone who looked at the age old human invention of the timer and said, [Ali: “Uh huh”] “This can be dramatically improved by fish racing.”
Ali: Yeah. Yeah.
Jack: Wait, how many fish can I– so, if I subscribe to them, if I join premium, right?
Ali: [laughs] Yeah.
Jack: If I join premium, I can get 100 fish in this race.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: But the maximum I can get here is six.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: What if I make the race three seconds long? And they just go for it.
Ali: Yeah, that's a relay race, right?
Jack: Yep, that's it. There’s applause at the end. [Ali laughs] Remove winner from race. Next race. Okay, now I'm down to…okay, it's still six fish again. Okay. Names. I can give them names!
Ali: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Jack: Oh my god.
Ali: [laughs] Wait, the names that it auto assigned me were Aaron, George, Rosalyn, Ilya, and Rory.
Jack: Those are some classic fish names. Meanwhile, I've set it to Ali and Jack, and I'm gonna make us do a 10 minute race. [Ali laughs] You ready?
Ali: Uh huh.
Jack: Who's gonna win? Let's find out. And fish go! Wait, a 10 second race, not 10 minutes.
Ali: I was like… [laughs]
Jack: We’re gonna just sit here for 10 minutes. Oh, wow! The person on the top, who I don't know who it is, it's number one has won.
Ali: Hmm.
Jack: I guess it didn't actually save our names, so, fair enough. [Ali laughs] Okay. All right. Well, back to the other aquarium timer, which is…let me drop the link for you. See if you're still banned.
Ali: I am still banned. I am.
Jack: Oh no! [laughs]
Ali: I checked, and I’m still banned. It's an IP ban. I wonder if I could like message them and be like, “Hey…”
Jack: “Hey, what the fuck?”
Ali: “We apologize for any inconvenience and ask that you try using one of our competitors instead.”
Jack: Wow!
Ali: Boy howdy.
Jack: Do you think it's because you were too political in the chat?
Ali: [laughs] I think so. I think that's why.
Jack: All right. Do you want to do fish one or shall I?
Ali: You can handle fish one, I think. Yeah, let’s do that.
Jack: Oh, God. [Ali laughs] Okay, okay. Oh, three, two, one, clap.
Ali: Yeah. Okay, yeah.
Jack: Three, two, one. [clap] Sick.
Jack: Oh no, Ali, the broadcast’s been scrambled! Instead of a Clapcast, we are now on a different podcast!
Ali: [laughs] Oh no, there's been an issue with the feeds.
Jack: Fuck, the feeds! Can we say fuck on Fishteen Minutes? [laughs quietly]
Ali: I don't think PBS will mind. Our contract with them doesn't start until next month.
Jack: Oh, okay. Cool, yeah. And it’s one of those contracts.
Ali: So get ‘em all in now. [laughs]
Jack: Yeah, we explicitly said, “Can we say fuck up until the contract begins?”
Ali: [laughs] Mm-hmm.
Jack: Now, I know that some Fishteen Minutes longtime listeners are worried about us signing with PBS.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Should they be worried, Ali?
Ali: No, no, no. I think that with the investments and the [laughs quietly] synergy between our two brands, Fishteen Minutes is really gonna go far.
Jack: And they've invested a lot of money.
Ali: [laughs] Yeah.
Jack: Yeah. We signed the contract, and we immediately bought a boat.
Ali: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: Which is pretty thrilling. We're gonna go out and do some field episodes. Welcome to Fishteen Minutes, a podcast about the different– your daily break for time to spend with the different fish that there are. I'm one of your hosts, Jack de Quidt, and I'm joined as always by Alicia Acampora.
Ali: Hello. Welcome to Fishteen Minutes.
Jack: What is Fishteen Minutes, for listeners who may not be aware?
Ali: Fishteen Minutes is a daily podcast, [laughs quietly] that you and I have been hosting for quite a few years now, where we take a little time out of our day to educate ourselves about one of the 36,000 types of fish.
Jack: There are so many.
Ali: Because all of them need care and attention.
Jack: Yeah, uh huh. Except for– well, the one– so, a few episodes ago, we discovered a kind of fish where there were four quadrillion of them, and I think they're doing fine. [both laugh] But I'm glad to have discovered that there are that many. You will notice that today’s Fishteen Minutes is existing only in an audio medium. There is no video component, but you'll be pleased to know that we are looking at our traditional aquarium timer, and as usual, the rules say that we will start a 15 minute timer when we begin discussing the fish. We'll discuss it, its habits, its lifestyle, what it's up to…
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: For a period of 15 minutes, and then the podcast is is over.
Ali: And you'll go about your day knowing a little bit more about a certain type of fish.
Jack: Yeah. You will feel spiritually closer to the ocean or maybe a river or pond or aquarium. Those are the four places that– or a lake. Those are the five places that fish live. [Ali laughs quietly] The ocean, the river, the pond...
Ali: The lake.
Jack: The lake and the aquarium.
Ali: Is that it?
Jack: Wait. Is that it? 36,000 fish.
Ali: Dunes don’t have water, right?
Jack: Like sand dunes?
Ali: Yeah, okay, the sand dunes. Well, sand dunes don't have water, but are there wet dunes? [laughs]
Jack: [laughs] Are there wet dunes?
Ali: Are there fish in canals? Because that's not a river.
Jack: Is a canal a kind of a river?
Ali: Mm…
Jack: Is a canal a kind of a river? Let me go to dictionary of rivers. [Ali laughs] Dictionary, canal: an artificial waterway. Hmm.
Ali: Hmm.
Jack: Doesn't mention river at all.
Ali: See?
Jack: Okay, six places that fish can live. The canal– seven. The canal, the aquarium, the pond, the lake, the ocean, wet dunes.
Ali: [laughs] I’m googling wet dunes, 'cause now I actually want to know.
Jack: Are you thinking of like–
Ali: What does dune mean? Isn’t it just like a dip in the…mm…
Jack: No, a dune is the opposite of a dip. Oh, I just got the stupid movie with Timothée Chalamet. I just searched “dune,” and I got that. [both laugh]
Ali: Fact sheet for moist and wet dune slacks.
Jack: I beg your pardon?
Ali: “Moist or wet depressions in coastal dune systems, sometimes with permanent water, but more often seasonally moist or flooded by freshwater. Dune slacks are extremely rich and specialized habitats very threatened by the lowering of water levels.”
Jack: Wow! Interdunal wetland. [Ali laughs] There's a PDF here called “Creating and Managing Dune Slacks.” You want to make one, Ali?
Ali: Yeah!
Jack: Oh, I think we need a digger. [both laugh]
Ali: We can get one of those.
Jack: This looks really– how quickly do you think you could get a digger?
Ali: Right now? Well, it's a Sunday.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: [laughs quietly] So, I think like 48 hours.
Jack: Rent JCB. You think you could get an excavator? Well, let's see. Calgrove rentals.
Ali: Yeah. People do this professionally.
Jack: [laughs] I'm sure they do, but we are fish podcasters.
Ali: Right.
Jack: You think if we rocked up, they’d just give us a JCB? [both laugh]
Ali: Oh, well, I'm talking about like getting in touch with somebody who would dig something for me.
Jack: Oh, right, right, right. Okay, I see.
Ali: [laughs] I don’t mean a device with which to dig with. But you know what…
Jack: That makes more sense.
Ali: You know, if I'm pulling out my checkbook anyway, who's the person who's going to be like, “I'm not gonna sell you this digger.”
Jack: Yeah, it would be a real– it would be like a cop, basically, right?
Ali: Yeah, but, you know.
Jack: They’d be like, “I don't think…” you know.
Ali: Money makes the world go round.
Jack: How do they know we can't drive a digger?
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, absolutely. And I have a small amount of money in my checking account that I am prepared to spend on excavator rental. [both laugh]
Ali: It's important for vulnerable habitats, okay?
Jack: I’m gonna try and make a dune slack on my street corner. [both laugh] I live so close to the ocean, I’d just be digging out into the sea.
Ali: Mm. And who would you find out there?
Jack: I don't know, probably the fish, right? Well. In fact, I'm grateful that we don't have an audio medium, because today… I'm setting the timer. Ali, it's time. Today, we're going to talk about the ghoul.
Ali: [gasps] The ghoul?
Jack: The ghoul. The ghoul. Let me just link this to Ali.
Ali: All fish are queens. [Jack laughs] Oh, what's going on today? All right. [both laugh quietly]
Jack: Can you describe what you're seeing, Ali?
Ali: Um, I'm currently looking at– ooh, wow, okay. I'm currently looking at the Wikipedia page for the…Inimicus fish?
Jack: Is it the Inimicus fish? Yes. Whose common name is one of 10 species collectively known by various common names, which we'll get to, [Ali laughs] but the primary one is the ghoul. And you're wondering, “Is that spelt like the creature what comes out of the graves in the night to steal the human's organs when they sleep? The foul gray beast of midnight?” Yes, G-H-O-U-L. That is this fish.
Ali: That is this fish. Picture, in your mind's eye, if you have a cube score: so, a fish but not identifiably fish-shaped?
Jack: No.
Ali: Like, more of like a…you know, sort of those square fish that have like…
Jack: Like a lump.
Ali: Yeah, that are like a lump, and they have– I'm seeing spines here. I'm seeing dirt. I’m seeing grime.
Jack: It’s covered in dirt.
Ali: [laughs] I’m seeing camouflage. I'm seeing some sort of like jowly mouth that looks as if it could have teeth in it, but who knows? Lips are pursed. Eyes are menacing.
Jack: Eyes are huge!
Ali: Eyes are huge and menacing.
Jack: And menacing! They’ve got a big dark blue pupil with a big white and brown circle of eye around them.
Ali: Okay, do you think– okay, so, in the photo, we're seeing a fish with dirt on it, surrounded by dirt.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: Do you think some of that texture is fish?
Jack: Oh, what, you think it's one of these fish that looks like the dirt?
Ali: Right. Or do you think this guy has just been rolling around for a little bit?
Jack: Well, he is found in…okay, I think the answer is a combo.
Ali: [laughs] Okay.
Jack: But we should learn more about this.
Ali: Please.
Jack: So, the Inimicus is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes, and in fact, you can see on the right hand side, they have this big cartilaginous ray-like fin.
Ali: Ohh.
Jack: Do you see? It's sort of like veiny and horrid.
Ali: They're like little…okay, there's like clawish whiskers that are coming out.
Jack: There are clawish whiskers that are coming out.
Ali: But you're talking about a little higher up, there's like a fin coming out.
Jack: Yeah, like a wing almost.
Ali: But it's so little. [laughs]
Jack: Yeah, how big is this fish? I guess we'll find out as we continue. They are classified within the subfamily…Synanceiinae?
Ali: Yeah?
Jack: Within the family Scorpaenidae.
Ali: They’re venomous?
Jack: These venomous benthic fishes…so, these are– a benthic fish lives down, way down down down there, near the bottom of seas or lakes.
Ali: Oh.
Jack: And they're found–
Ali: They’re denser than water, so they can rest on the seafloor.
Jack: Whoa! That’s sick!
Ali: They’re just taking naps down there.
Jack: Are humans denser than water? We're not. We float.
Ali: No, 'cause we float.
Jack: Yes. [both laugh] But compared to other animals, we don't float very well.
Ali: Mm, mm-hmm.
Jack: We float sort of. I remember learning to swim and being told, “It's okay. People float,” and really not feeling like I was floating with any degree of confidence.
Ali: Sure.
Jack: But now I feel more confident. They're often found on sandy or silty substrates of lagoon or seaward reefs, which makes me think, Ali, that yes, this guy has dirt on him because he's been hanging out down there.
Ali: Wait, is that eight? Is that aquariums, wet dunes, oceans, rivers, lakes, canals, lagoons?
Jack: No, it says– oh shit, lagoons! [Ali laughs] Yes, it might be, because I was–
Ali: Also, I’m missing one still, because I only just said seven out loud, but it should be eight now.
Jack: Oh, yeah. It’s, uh… [Ali laughs] Well, tune in next episode when we figure this out before the timer starts. We'll be able to confirm this tomorrow. I've put in an order from PBS for a notepad for the first time in my life.
Ali: Wow.
Jack: And I will use it to write out the potentially eight types of places fish live. [Ali laughs] The 10 described species are collectively known by various common names, including ghoul, goblinfish, sea goblin, spiny devilfish, stinger, and stingfish. It is one of two genera– eh, we don't need to know that bit. That's just taxonomy.
Ali: What do you–
Jack: The name– oh, go on.
Ali: What do you think that these fish have done to people to earn… [laughs]
Jack: They have fucked them up.
Ali: I guess they are poisonous.
Jack: They have venomous spines, and their genus name Inimicus is Latin for foe or enemy.
Ali: [gasps] What?
Jack: Yeah, they hate this. They call this guy the sea goblin, and then when they decide to name him in Latin, they call him the enemy.
Ali: Wow.
Jack: The fish possesses a complex and extremely potent venom. Content warning: we're going to talk about fish poison for three minutes or something. [Ali laughs] I did not expect this, but fish poison is happening now. It's stored in glands at the bases of needle-like spines in their dorsal fins. Upon contact with the dorsal fin– that's just the fin on the back!
Ali: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jack: That's closest to where the human is going to be.
Ali: Sure.
Jack: Because the human’s coming in from the top, because we live above the fish for the most part.
Ali: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Jack: Uh, I’ll just keep reading here. It contains a mixture of proteolytic enzymes, including stonustoxin, trachynilysin, and cardioleputin. It results in severe and immediate local pain, sometimes followed by shock, paralysis, tissue necrosis, and even death. And then it follows up immediately by saying: “The genus name means enemy in Latin.”
Ali: Somebody was really like, “You gotta stay away from that fish. I don't care what that fish is called. I just gotta let you know you gotta stay away from it.”
Jack: Yeah. I'm going to call it the goblin. I'm going to call it the ghoul. I'm going to call it—let me read some more names here—the Caledonian stinger. [Ali laughs] I'm going to call it the demon stinger. I'm going to call it the popeyed sea goblin. I'm gonna call it the barred ghoul, the filament-finned stinger, the two-stick stingfish. [laughs quietly] This person calls it the spotted stonefish, presumably because they did not know it was poisonous when they discovered it.
Ali: Oh, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just saw it on the floor there and was like, “Yeah, that doesn't look too bad.”
Jack: Yeah, it looks quite fine.
Ali: Ah…
Jack: Go ahead.
Ali: I just want to know about the first human interaction with this fish, really.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: That people were like, “You know what? This is getting out of hand.” [laughs quietly]
Jack: That is a great, great, great question. So, it was first described as a genus in 1904 by two American ichthyologists. Ichthyology, of course, is the branch of fish. Huh. Oh, Ali’s sent me a picture. [laughs quietly]
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: Whoa!
Ali: I'm looking for more pictures to see what's going on with the texture of these fish, and it seems that they're all just dusty looking.
Jack: Yes.
Ali: Like, that is a natural occurrence to blend in with the ground, so you step on the spikes and you die. This is intentional.
Jack: Oh my God.
Ali: Ghoulish.
Jack: It’s ghoulish! [Ali laughs] When the fish– they don't like moving. They have no– [laughs quietly] this such a great– this sentence says it all: “They have no known natural predators.”
Ali: Wow.
Jack: Once dug into the soil…so, they’re ambush predators. They pop out. Once dug in, they are very reluctant to leave their hiding places.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: When they do move, they display an unusual mechanism of subcarangiform locomotion, which is fish locomotion. They crawl slowly along the seabed—crawl!— employing the four lower rays, two on each side, of their pectoral fins as legs. [Ali gasps] I gotta look up…
Ali: We gotta find a video.
Jack: Ghoulfish video.
Ali: [laughs] I guess I want to spoil this video very closely. There's a picture. I don't know where I– okay, if you go to– okay. [laughs] Okay, if you go to commons.wikimedia.org and look for the bearded ghoul, you will perhaps find…
Jack: Commons.wikimedia.org.
Ali: [laughs] You will perhaps find an image of…it looks like the bottom of the ocean. It's sand, right? And then in the middle of that photo, there's a figure covered in sand. Spines, the whole nine yards. But the fish’s like fins when they're out are gorgeous. They're like butterfly wings.
Jack: Oh, wow! Look at that!
Ali: They’re like…
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: The very edges are this like really nice orange color, and then you have a layer where it's like white with these purple and orange/yellow specks, and then you have this gorgeous white line, and then you have this purple section closest to the body, that has like these white lines going towards it, pointing out towards the edge of the fins. It's stunning.
Jack: It’s beautiful. I think that is its…yes, let me see. “When threatened, they spread their brilliantly colored pectoral and caudal fins as a warning.”
Ali: Ooh. [gasps]
Jack: Also, I got a video for you.
Ali: Thank you. Thank you.
Jack: You ready to see this little freak go?
Ali: [laughs] I can’t wait. Should we do a “three, two, one”?
Jack: Yeah. This video is eight seconds long. [both laugh] Presumably after which the cameraperson met a poisonous end. It's from NatureFootage, and the full title of the video is “Spiny devilfish (Inimicus didactylus) walking on the sand.”
Ali: Mm.
Jack: All right. You ready?
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Three, two, one, go. Eedle-eedle-eedle-eedle-ee! [laughs quietly]
Ali: Wow. What grace!
Jack: It’s walking. That's amazing. Oop, done. [both laugh] Video’s a bit short, isn’t it? [Ali laughs] Oh, wow! Look at this one! Okay, this video is by DiveBuddy. It's 1 minute 41 seconds long.
Ali: [laughs] All right.
Jack: Okay. Three, two, one, go!
Ali: Oh, this one's a little more slow going. [both laugh]
Jack: Having some…
Ali: This one’s going uphill, so it’s… [laughs]
Jack: Yeah, this one is going uphill. These fish look really creepy, the way they are just like covered in dust and sort of garbage. [laughs]
Ali: The spines really go up there too, huh?
Jack: Yeah, and they’ll poison you.
Ali: Like, they point straight up.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: Ooh, okay!
Jack: Oh! Whoa! [Ali laughs] Oh, it like wiggled in a threatening fashion.
Ali: Yeah, wiggled and moved really quickly, like way more quickly than it…
Jack: Oh, now it's just sitting there, vibing out, moving its little eyes around. [Ali laughs] Here it looks quite pleasant. I can kind of see why they call it the sea goblin, though.
Ali: Right. It is very scary the way that it just looks like it’s sort dragging itself along.
Jack: Yeah.
Ali: Like, it has to support the weight of the rest of its funny little body.
Jack: Yeah, it's quite a lot of fish for– oh, it's showing its beautiful pectoral fins. [Ali laughs quietly] It's quite a lot of fish for what it really amounts to, right? which is just like a lot of very poisonous spines and a mouth.
Ali: Uh huh.
Jack: Like, did we need that much fish, nature? I don't know. I want to see if I can…
Ali: What does it eat?
Jack: Yeah, that's a great question. What does it eat?
Ali: Is it poisoning other fish down there? Is it waiting for other fish to fly past it and it gets it with its spikes and then feeds?
Jack: Shh-chh, and then eats, yeah. Yeah, what is its deal?
Ali: Okay, wait. Okay, wait. [laughs] Youtube.com Tom Hone, one year ago, “Inimicus didactylus slow motion feeding.” Also, this is really scary, because it's like this guy's aquarium, and like, how does the handling go to put this fish into captivity if it's ghoulish and an enemy?
Jack: And it is humans’– whoa! Oh! [Ali laughs] Oh my god! Just chewing on it like a cigar! Look at it! [Ali laughs] This video is also only 15 seconds long. The videos of this horrid fish have to be so short.
Ali: You can't– you have to– it's chilling stuff, you know?
Jack: It is chilling stuff.
Ali: This fish is an enemy. It's a vulgar thing, and you really have to…
Jack: It’s a foul creature. This is a PSA from Fishteen Minutes. If you have been envenomized by the Inimicus species, medical aid must be sought at the earliest opportunity. Immerse the affected area in hot water.
Ali: Oh.
Jack: Immerse it in very hot water, because that can partially denature the proteolytic enzymes in the venom. I know that.
Ali: Wow.
Jack: Wait. [laughs quietly] Okay. We have 12 seconds left. [Ali laughs] This is real big “introducing something to your therapist right at the end of the session,” but Ali, I have to read you this sentence right now, which is…fuck, the really loud alarm went off. [Ali gasps] Okay. Okay, ready? Gonna need your immediate read on this. “For more extreme cases, an intramuscular injection of a specific horse-derived antivenom can be life saving.” [Ali laughs] The first time I read that, I thought they meant an antivenom that you might also use on a horse.
Ali: No.
Jack: You know, like some people use horse medicine. They mean that they've made this antivenom from a horse?
Ali: Are horses our saviors?
Jack: To the ghoul?
Ali: [laughs] To the enemy?
Jack: What’s the Latin name for horse?
Ali: To the spine demon? [both laugh]
Jack: Horse. The Latin name for horse is, of course, Equus ferus caballus.
Ali: Mm-hmm.
Jack: Which, in Latin, means…let me just pull out my Latin dictionary. [laughs] Okay, Google Translate says Equus ferus caballus translates to “a wild horse.” [Ali laughs] So, not helpful. But we can make antipoison from horses, apparently.
Ali: Thank you to the horses.
Jack: Thank you to the horses. Well, this has been Fishteen Minutes, and we'll see you next time. I can't imagine that we're gonna have any more problems with the Clapcast. I think this is probably just a one and done. [laughs quietly]
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: The signal will be fixed.
Ali: Uh huh.
Jack: I think we'll be fine.
Ali: Yeah.
Jack: All right. Goodbye, everybody, and we'll see you probably tomorrow back on the Fishteen Minutes podcast feed.
Ali: Good night.
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